Search engine results may retrieve results that could be too explicit for children, even if you type in a key term that is deemed innocent. Words like ‘Essex’ may return sites about Essex, but because it contains the word ’sex’ as well, this may return some not so appropriate sites suitable for adults only. This is exactly the kind of problem most parents with young children and Muslims face on a daily basis when using the internet.
The Islamic religion prohibits Muslim users from performing or engaging in anything that it is written as being sinful (Haram). Things that are permitted are normally easier to come across on Google, however other Haram sites or content may pop up as well, which ultimately causes offence to the Muslim user. Recent success story of a new Halal search engine has so far been a successful step into remedying this continuous problem.
ImHalal.com is the first Islamic-oriented Internet search engine created to filter any sites that may be deemed sinful. Typing in specific key terms that are unintentionally sinful, will be filtered with the search engine producing immediate results of what it thinks is Halal (permitted) websites. This is further programmed to stop any Haram key terms from being entered such as ’sex’, ‘bikini’ etc. How this is monitored is simply through scaling each term ranging from 1 to 3, with 3 being the most Haram term. If a term that is seen as Haram is entered into the search term box, a message will pop up stating “Oops! Your search inquiry has a Haram level of 3 out of 3! I would like to advise you to change your search terms and try again.”
The Haram scale will act as a warning to the Muslim user, allowing them to change their keyword search and preventing them from across a list of results that may contain forbidden images, words etc. Examples of terms that are likely to come up on the Haram scale are words like ‘pig’ which rates 1 out of 3, as the pig is an animal that Muslims are not allowed to eat. This will also trigger a Haram rating of 2 out of 3 when the term ‘pork’ is typed in. Naturally a word like ’sex’ or ‘bikini’ will bring back a scale rating of 3 out of 3, however Halal terms like ‘burkini’ which is the Muslim female equivalent of a bathing suit will bring back immediate search results with suitable websites.
After merely two weeks of its launch more than 500,000 visitors logged onto the new service, as it not only allowed Muslims to surf the internet ’safely’ but for non-Muslims as well with young children. Furthermore users are able to search in many different languages including English, Arabic and Farsi. Reza Sardeha, founder of the AZS Media Group (based in Amsterdam) who is behind the creation of ImHalal.com states that the search engine will “help Muslims explore the Internet in a safe and clean environment”. He further added that he believed the search engine will become the next big thing and most used search engine in the Middle East within a year in which he hopes will make it one of the top three search engines most-used in the world.
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